In 2022, I taught Technical Writing for Engineers, one of several special sections of the course we offer specifically for engineering majors. One main project in that course involved students designing, producing, and testing paper airplanes made from a single roll (or less) of toilet paper. Students adhered to a spec sheet, documented their builds, prepared a design report of their decisions, and tested their airplanes in the Student Experience Center lobby, launching them from the second floor. After data was collected, students were assigned a follow-up performance report based upon another student’s design report, toilet paper airplane, and data. Photos are available here: https://twitter.com/osuswlf/status/1495901796753358848

In 2020, during the time when courses were being taught via distance education, I shifted the Environmental Writing (WR 462/562) field trip to a weekly individual field trip. This assignment asked students to build a quadrat (a 2’ x 2’ square frame frequently used in population sampling) and place their quadrat in the same place for 9 weeks. Students took notes, photographs, and wrote weekly journal entries for each week, focusing on themes that ranged from sensory experiences, species identification, and ecological concepts. Maps of their quadrat journals can be found here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1mJKeMxZfsV19n3moj58wiv3LeUWd7ONr&usp=sharing

In the winter of 2017, I taught a course that focused on contemporary rhetoric theory and my choice of focus was material rhetorics. The students in that course read and discussed epistemic rhetoric, the rhetoric of science, assemblage theory, rhetorical ecologies, and more. We decided to publish our final papers in the course as a material object – something that could go out into the world after the course was over. hat edited collection is now available on Amazon and is called Assembling Oregon: Material Rhetoric in the Pacific Northwest. The book includes chapters on a plethora of topics from a material rhetoric perspective. Some focus on Corvallis, the town where Oregon State University is located, some analyze Portland, the hipster capital of the world, and some address topics significant to other locations throughout Oregon. Together, they represent a range of material rhetoric investigations about the state. Perhaps more importantly, however, they also represent the hard work, thoughtful critiques, and insightful readings of students in the MA in English at OSU. All proceeds from the sale of this book fund graduate student travel.

When I teach WR 362, Science Writing, I ask students to complete a number of science journalism assignments, including a short article on new discoveries in scientific fields and a longer article on a topic of their own choosing. This feature article is then published on a science writing magazine site called Castor. Castor is an online magazine of science writing composed, edited, and designed by undergraduate students at Oregon State University. Focusing on long-form feature articles about science topics, Castor seeks to provide the northwest with the quality science writing. All of the writing in Castor comes from students in  WR 362, Science Writing, a course offered in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film.  Throughout the term, students work hard to investigate, research, and write the best science writing this side of the Cascades.